There are various non-lethal weapons systems utilized by the U.S. armed services to provide force protection in non-battlefield situations, such as against civilians in riot or crowd control situations—where lethal or destructive force is contra-indicated. One particular such device is fired from a tube mounted atop light vehicles and it is designated as the light vehicle obscuration smoke system or LVOSS—which provides a low toxicity protective smoke in combination with anti-riot grenades. A particular such anti-riot grenade is designated as the M99 Blunt Trauma Grenade, which grenade uses a pyrotechnic charge to discharge 32 rubber balls and achieve crowd control through physical stimuli. The M99 Blunt Trauma Grenade is cylindrical in configuration with the rubber balls packed about a propellant core—such that upon ignition of the core, the balls will be propelled outwardly in the cylindrical pattern, along with the hot fragments and gasses from the ignited propellant.
An alternative non-lethal U.S. military weapon system to the tube fired LVOSS, is a hand thrown grenade termed the XM 104 non-lethal bursting hand grenade (NLBHG)—a grenade intended for use in relatively confined spaces; wherein, the grenade releases a shower of from 100 to 130 pellets to sting and disorient any individuals located in the subject space. However, similar to the LVOSS, the pellets in the NLBHG are directly packed in a cylindrical pattern, along the length of a central propellant containing tube or cylinder,—such that when the propellant is ignited and detonates, the pellets will be ejected in a generally in cylindrically pattern from the NLBHG, along with the exploding propellant gases and hot embers.
Another alternative U.S. military non-lethal device is the M5 Crowd Control Munition (MCCM)—which is configured and used in a manner similar to the M18A1 Claymore Mine, i.e. an elongated parallelepiped, that is ground mounted, and designed to direct the explosive force in the direction of the front face of the parallelepiped. While the Claymore ejects lethal fragments from its face, the MCCM ejects about 600 high velocity rubber balls from its face, with a significant percussion and flash, along with hot propellant gases and embers of the propellant. Due to these hot gases and embers and the initial velocity of the rubber balls—the minimum safe distance from the face of the MCCM is 5 meters. Further, while the MCCM is effective up to about 30 meters—it is only effective in a 60 to 80 degree horizontal arc (dispersion arc) from its face.
There is a need in the art for an effective non-lethal military device that has a greater dispersion than the cylindrical patterns or limited dispersion arc of the prior art, while also providing a means to prevent the targets from exposure to hot gases and embers—which can cause significant injury.